Holiday Planning

2020 has been a challenging year and many of us don’t yet know what the upcoming holiday period will bring in terms of travel and family commitments. With more uncertainty around our planning, it is important that we ensure that we think carefully about experimental plans over the upcoming holiday period.

We take this opportunity to remind investigators that experiments should not take place over the University shutdown / holiday period wherever possible.

This is to ensure that there is adequate support, oversight and supervision available to those undertaking experiments and to ensure animal care staff are able to focus on the basic day to day care for the animals.

If long term experiments run over the break it is the Primary Investigator’s responsibility to ensure there is adequate coverage and back-up to care for their animals. They must also ensure animals are monitored as per the approved protocol. High impact or high risk animal work or that which requires veterinary oversight, must not be undertaken at this time. The ANU Vet team are still available over this period for critical advice and assistance where necessary on 6125 1130.

If you are completing your work or leaving the University in the coming months, contact us to close your protocol. This is especially important for research involving GMOs.

Animal Ethics Guidelines and Standards

NEW: Guidelines and Standards review site

The vet services and animal ethics team have developed a Sharepoint site accessible by ANU researchers to review documents that are currently under development. All investigators have the ability to comment on draft documents through the site. You can access the site here:

https://anu365.sharepoint.com/sites/ANURSD/SitePages/Document-Collaboration.aspx

Documents currently under development include:

• ANU Unexpected Adverse Event Procedure – Update
• Mouse Breeding Standards – New Document
• Blood Collection from Mice Standards – New Document

Please access the site and comment on the documents to provide feedback by the due dates as listed on the website.

New ANU Standards, Guidelines and Templates Released for Animal Based Research

• AEEC Approved Document 023_Tumour Models - newly published
• Anaesthesia Training - Supplementary Material - updated to include module EU21-6 (post anaesthetic monitoring)

2021 Training

2021 training dates for animal ethics seminars have been set as per the below dates (all Wednesday sessions). Additional dates may be added where demand requires. Note that for 2021 we are planning to deliver separate sessions for wildlife and biomedical personnel.

• 20th January 1pm-2:30pm – Wildlife ANML40
• 17th February 1pm-2:30pm – Biomedical ANML03
• 24th February 1pm-2:30pm – Combined/As needed extra session ANML03 and ANML40
• 17th March 1pm-2:30pm – Wildlife Wildlife ANML40
• 24th March – Animal Care Staff (as needed) or extra session for later honours starters (tbc)
• 21st April 1pm-2:30pm – Biomedical ANML03
• 5th May 1pm-2pm – Refresher Training (Combined)
• 19th May 1pm-2:30pm – Wildlife Wildlife ANML40
• 16th June 1pm-2:30pm – Biomedical ANML03 Refresher training

It is a requirement that all investigators complete animal ethics training every 5 years and keep their training up to date. Please register for the session on Wednesday 5th May for refresher training if you last attended the seminar more than 5 years ago. At this point in time all seminars will continue to be delivered via Zoom.